Our poor, distraught and disappointed sellers - all having to deal with the agony of having a house for sale with barely any showings and not an offer for weeks on end, what are they to do?  Psychologists see a similar phenomena when parents divorce and the children are convinced it's their fault, my sellers are SURE it's their fault when their property doesn't generate an offer in the first week it's for sale.  They wrack their brains and wring their hands, they move furniture from here to there and back again, they clean and scrub and scrub and clean, they hire stagers and stare longingly at the new listings popping up each day that THEY would love to be able to move to, if only theirs would sell.

I get asked at least daily (usually by one of my agents) what can be done to get movement on their listing(s).  Often time more 'old school' marketing efforts are required (newspaper advertising, open houses and the like) and sometimes there is an opportunity for a specialized marketing effort. 

When I say a 'specialized marketing effort' I mean a strategic direct marketing campaign targeted to the buyer(s) most likely to offer on your property.  First you must determine who your house is likely to attract; what was YOUR life situation when you bought your home?  Were you a single professional, a growing family, downsizing?  Did you want to live in your neighborhood for a particular school for the kids, or because it was close to your office?

Once you have determined answers to these types of questions, a buyer 'template' starts to form and from there you can market to your most likely buyer candidates.

So, if you bought your house in order to be within a certain school district or school, consider advertising within the particular school or schools, place property fliers on the hallway bulletin boards, ask for ad space within the school newsletter, send letters to the families in the school directory about your home. 

If a single professional is likely to be interested in your type of home, consider placing property fliers in and around the local corporation campuses and common areas in the buildings (with permission of course, and it never hurts to actually work for one of these companies yourself!)

It can always be argued that price is the main factor in whether or not a house sells, and/or how quickly it sells but which agent is willing to ask their seller for a price drop without exhausting every other potential option, right?  Once you've run through every possible property promotion known to man, and if your sellers aren't amenable to being on the market for what might be a very long time, then price is truly where the ‘buck stops'.  It's the last best way to move a property.  Market time and price have a positive relationship, the longer a property is on the market is all the more evidence it being overpriced. 

A formula to consider is as follows (and is a direct quote from a publication on pricing homes) "Homes priced correctly have a 95 percent chance of selling; 15 percent over market a 20 percent chance of selling; 10 percent over market a 30 percent chance of selling; 5 percent over market a 50 percent chance of selling; and at market value, a 95 percent chance of selling.

Another thing I'm seeing more of as our market continues to settle is a rise in the co-op commission percentage.  Just recently, at the behest of one of my sellers, I increased the sales office commission on their listing from 3%-4% in the hopes that eager buyer's agents will ‘sell' this listing over it's competitors, but will that work?  My sellers and I are of the mind set that we should try just about anything and everything we can so that they are able to get into a property better suited to them.  While some folks question this method, anything is worth a shot when you are that seller, wracking your brain, and wringing your hands.  I'll be sure to report back with the feedback we receive on this matter.

For the meantime, those sellers who plan to sell AND buy, can take comfort that what they may lose by a price drop on their own property for instance, will likely be made up in what they WON'T have to spend on their new house.  If you end up dropping the price on your listing 20k, it's likely the sellers of your next home are having to make a similar concession so we can hope it all balances out.